Dragons of God

Former Newsweek reporter Coppola spent the last few years investigating the far-right extremist fringe, meeting white supremacists, neo-Nazis, Klansmen, ""Identity Christians"" who worship an Aryan Christ, survivalists and paramilitary groups in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Idaho, Colorado, Kansas and California. His chilling report, notable for its crisp, restrained prose, sounds a wake-up call to mainstream America. His respondents see themselves as idealistic patriots out to save the nation from ""mud people""-African Americans, Jews, minorities, immigrants; many of them preach racial warfare or violent confrontation with a federal government seen as under the sway of Zionists. Among those he interviewed were Richard Butler, founder of Aryan Nations, and neo-Nazi Klansman Tom Metzger, head of the White Aryan Resistance. His report shows that in the 1990s, neo-Nazis have invaded ""patriot"" citizens' militias, infecting them with virulent anti-Semitic and racist beliefs and paranoid fantasies. (Nov.)